Bina's Place — Restaurant in Rogers Park Township

Overall Thoughts: Bina’s Place is a small family-owned restaurant serving up delicious Balkan food— truly some great quality grilled meats. The interior is decorated very simply with tables against the walls seating ~4 people each. When we came in at 6:30pm on Sunday, it was pretty empty and they were unfortunately out of most desserts (they stop serving them by 7pm). The server/owner was super sweet, and the food came out pretty quickly. The prices felt very reasonable for the quality. When I’m back in Rogers Park, I’d love to come back to try more of their menu!

Food I tried: Balkan Barbeque Plate (4.7/5): The meats were SO juicy, aromatic, flavorful, and beautifully grilled. The toasted pita was fluffy and chewy too. The chicken was a little drier than I would’ve liked but otherwise everything was so juicy, tender, and wonderful.

Spinach & Feta Burek (4.6/5): The burek’s texture was perfect— it’s light, buttery, and flaky, and slightly chewy when you bite into it. The flavors of the spinach / feta were mild (mostly just salty) but I liked it that way, as it really let the textures of the pastry shine through. —

Price (relative to peers): 4.5/5 Food: 4.6/5 Ambience: 4.4/5 Service: 5/5 Overall...

I used to LOVE this place when it was on Lunt. I looked forward to it opening on Touhy forever. I went once and got my regular sandwich and was disappointed it didn't taste as flavorful as before. The fries on the other hand were amazing! What completely killed me was when I was on the hunt for Talumba (think slavic doughnut type pastry soaked in a sugar syrup). I was so excited to share this dish with my family. The horror of when I bit it and it tasted like meat 😭. It was clearly fried in old oil from savory dishes. To me this is unforgivable. I can't help but imagine what other ways they try to cut corners. It makes me so sad.

It's been months. I want to give them a 3rd try because I seriously loved their food but I can't justify...

Ordered once, it was nice! Second and third time, terrible. The cevape taste like rubber. The bread wasn’t even split in half like other places do. The bread wasn’t dipped in anything either so best believe it was dry with rubber cevape. I got 2 pounds of the cabbage but no onion…. I mean everyone gives onions with cevape so I don’t know if I should have requested it yet the first time I got onions… also over priced for the quality of food, I mean $13 for large cevape is kind of a lot. Many other places that serve better cevape than this one but decided to try this one and won’t be...